The reviews are in, and the critics are underwhelmed by the legislative year.
The Bee's Steve Weigand: "After
an eight-month session marked mainly by indolence, infighting and ineptitude, the 2007 version of the California Legislature has gone home."
"Someone count the silverware.
"The 'regular session' (they're coming back over the next couple of weeks for 'extraordinary' sessions on water and health care) ended in the wee hours Wednesday with a two-house performance that was by turns mildly entertaining, marginally productive and mostly soporific."
Ooh! A three dollar word! Nice work, Steve!
CW's Malcolm Maclachlan reports on
some of the end-of-session gamesmanship.
"[
Don] Perata's press secretary, Alicia Trost, said that
[Mark] Leno used his power as chairman of the Assembly Appropriation Committee to stall numerous Senate bills important to Perata and Migden. This included several Migden bills sent over to the Assembly Rules Committee, such as SB 962, Migden's bill to create a repository of cord blood, and SB 22, a bill to expand breast-feeding support services via Medi-Cal. Other bills were sent to the Appropriations suspense file, Trost said. This included SB 11, Migden's bill to allow opposite-sex couples to register as domestic partners, which died on suspense.
"'We were upset over the unprecedented number of bills that were pulled to Rules," said Alicia Trost. 'Since then, we've gotten together with Leno and come to an agreement.'
Leno confirms that he met with Perata on Friday, but said the meeting was not a "hostage exchange." Nevertheless, as of Tuesday, both sides had released most of the other side's bills.
CW's John Howard reports the speaker had to do
some serious arm-twisting to get a bill through his house that would allow trial lawyers to boost their fees.
"In the Senate, it zipped through the Rules Committee and hit the floor in what is known in the Capitol as a "jam job." It was sent to the governor's desk with the bare minimum required--21 votes in the 40-member house.
"
On the Assembly side, it was also approved with the bare minimum, but only after Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez called two separate caucuses and twisted the arms of fellow Democrats to get the bill out."
The Times's Jordan Rau: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's vow to create a 'post-partisan' string of accomplishments for California this year succumbed to the Capitol's entrenched ideological divides, resulting in
a legislative session that by many measures was the least fruitful of the governor's tenure."
Does anybody remember 2005?
"Extending health insurance to all Californians, Schwarzenegger's top priority, foundered amid disagreements with Democrats about who should pay for it and opposition from Republicans who questioned the need for systemic change.
"Lawmakers could not agree on how to safeguard the state's water supply, despite a pressing drought and a court ruling that could imperil one of the primary sources of drinking water for Southern California.
"And one political change Schwarzenegger sought, to make the Legislature less partisan by stopping incumbents from drawing their own district lines -- in effect, choosing their voters -- never got off the ground for the third year in a row.
"'
This was the session of missed opportunities,' said
Tony Quinn, a political analyst and former consultant to Republicans."
The Bee's Jim Sanders: "Though more than 2,800 bills were proposed and about 960 were approved during the nine-month session,
political analysts say the scorecard is dismal.
"'
If your expectations are low enough, it was a great success,'
John J. Pitney, government professor at Claremont-McKenna College, said of the Legislature's regular session that ended with a gavel's thud about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"'They took care of the ordinary business of government, but when it came to the large issues, it was a session of deferral rather than accomplishment,' Pitney said.
"
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst from the University of Southern California, cautioned against judging the Legislature until the special sessions are over.
"But Jeffe conceded that lawmakers aren't hearing much applause, adding, '
I would say the perception is that the Legislature didn't accomplish very much.'
"
Dan Schnur, a GOP strategist, likened the legislative session to professional sports.
"'(It's like) a basketball game that ends regulation in a tie,' Schnur said. 'They're going to overtime.'
"Schnur disagrees with analysts who claim the state's 52-day budget impasse made it impossible to devote enough time to health care, water and other key issues.
"'The budget is a convenient excuse,' he said. '
As soon as they realized there was the prospect of a special session, it lifted the threat of an absolute deadline. It gave them some breathing space.'"
CW looks toward the special session and finds
the big winner in the health care debate could be -- public schools?"
Under one of the proposals being discussed at the Capitol, schools could secure as much as $2.2 billion as part of a health-care deal.
"The scenario is based on a big hypothetical, but is by no means out of the realm of possibility. Here's how it would work: Among the options being looked at to fund a health-care expansion would be a one-cent increase in the state sales tax. But
under Proposition 98, about 40 percent of that sales-tax revenue would go directly to schools.
"So, even though the sales-tax hike would generate about $5.5 billion, according to estimates from the legislative-analyst office, only $3.1 billion would be available to use for health care."
The LAT's Nancy Vogel looks at
what emerged in the final hours of the session. "Fast-food restaurants may still fry food in artificial fats, but they'll have to tell customers about it under measures dispatched by the California Legislature in a final 17-hour day.
"Legislators sent to the governor bills to raise car registration fees by $3, ban smoking in cars carrying children and put the source of water on bottled-water labels.
"SB 7 by Assemblywoman
Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) would make it an infraction to smoke in a car, moving or not, if children were present. And under AB 1521 by Assemblywoman
Mary Salas (D-Chula Vista), labels on bottled water would have to name the source of the water."
We're guessing "bottled in Chula Vista" wouldn't be a selling point.
"In another bill now with the governor, new commercial buildings would have to be designed, built and operated to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and maximize energy efficiency. AB 888, by Assemblyman
Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), would take effect in 2013."
"Seeking to reverse the state's decade-long trend of using standard gasoline in its alternative fuel fleet, the Legislature
passed a bill Tuesday that would push the vehicles to run on the environmentally friendly fuels they were designed to use," writes the Merc News's Kimberly Kindy.
"The bill, AB 236, by Assemblyman
Ted Lieu, D-El Segundo, was rewritten over the past month to address problems exposed by a MediaNews investigation that showed the state's 6,000-plus alternative fuel fleet runs almost entirely on standard gasoline.
"The state is now encouraging government employees to use California's one public ethanol station in San Diego, and on Monday opened a pump offering E85 - a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline - in the state garage, a few blocks from the Capitol.
"'There's a huge inconsistency between what the governor says, in terms of greening the state fleet, and what is actually happening,' Lieu said. 'In California, we should be the leader in terms of clean energy and having a clean state fleet. We are pushing private industry to do this with mandates, so the state has . . . to make sure its own house is in order. What we are doing now - it's hypocrisy.'"
"Defeated after midnight in a move to get a pay raise through the Legislature, California's correctional officers union suffered another setback Wednesday when
state labor negotiators said they were prepared to unilaterally impose a new contract on the prison cops," writes Andy Furillo and Aurelio Rojas in the Bee.
"If it is approved by the Legislature, the 'last, best and final' offer by the Department of Personnel Administration would give the 31,000 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association a 15 percent pay raise over three years. Other benefits and pay differentials would push the total compensation package up almost 20 percent.
"DPA Director
David Gilb said the union has until the close of business Monday to respond to the offer. He said the final offer doesn't necessarily mean the state will 'post conditions' on the union but that the unilateral action is all but certain.
"'At some point we probably will, but I don't want to speculate on the timing of it,' Gilb said. '
We can choose to implement any or all of our last, best and final. We hope they accept it. That's the preferred outcome.'"
"A Santa Clara County judge
has ordered the state's parole system to change the way it does business, setting up a major legal clash over the parole board's routine refusal to release convicted murderers," reports Howard Mintz in the Merc News.
"In an unprecedented 34-page ruling, Superior Court Judge
Linda Condron recently called the current parole process "malfunctioning." The parole board's approach to thousands of cases each year is so flawed, she ruled, that it violates the constitutional rights of California's inmates during parole hearings. Her harshly worded opinion, which stemmed from the cases of five local murderers seeking parole, took the extraordinary step of ordering the state agency to revise its procedures and undergo training within 90 days to fix the system.
"State lawyers are fighting Condron's order, filing court papers this week saying they are appealing to the 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose. If upheld, Condron's ruling could entitle thousands of convicted killers to new parole hearings and give them more leeway to argue for release if they have, among other conditions, shown remorse for their crimes and demonstrated they have reformed in prison."
"A state commission in charge of enforcing campaign finance laws took its first step Wednesday toward closing a fundraising loophole by
proposing a ban on the use of legal defense funds for fundraising purposes," writes Judy Lin in the Bee.
"At its monthly meeting, the five-member Fair Political Practices Commission unanimously agreed to consider tougher reporting requirements and stricter spending limits on legal defense accounts, which have slowly grown in popularity among candidates and elected state officials.
"Other proposed changes include:
"• Requiring candidates to reveal why they needed to raise legal defense funds.
"• Capping the total amount of contributions a candidate could collect to within $5,000 of his or her anticipated legal fees.
"• Requiring better record-keeping for audits."
"California officials Wednesday
announced the release of $64 million in unspent Proposition 63 money to local governments to provide mental health services," reports the Bee's Aurelio Rojas.
"The disbursement comes less than a month after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a budget veto, eliminated $55 million in funding for a mental health program that has been praised for reducing homelessness.
"Administration officials argued counties should be able to sustain services using other revenue, including money from Proposition 63, the 2004 voter-approved 1 percent tax on people who make more than $1 million a year.
"State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who maintains the governor's cuts were illegal because they violated provisions in Proposition 63, lauded the new money."
Are you ready for
Arnold the Vegetarian? Some scientists say if Schwarzenegger is
serious about helping the planet, he'll stop eating meat.
"Worldwide, agricultural activity accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse-gas emissions and livestock production has a particularly big impact because of the large amount of methane emitted from belching cattle."
